Roving eye

The HanspeakHe is one who always lagged behind when it came to the limelight with lesser known ones hogging it too much, whether they had...

The Hanspeak
He is one who always lagged behind when it came to the limelight with lesser known ones hogging it too much, whether they had the talent or not. But destiny has it that he got the whole of the limelight in just one go. And Hans Raj Hans is all set to enthrall the glitterati at the Jazz and World Music Festival at the Hollywood Bowl in August. 8220;There will be all types of music, country, gypsy and I have been invited for my Sufi singing.8221; But Hans is not overawed by the latest development and that is what endears him to you. Hans is not new to international acclaim for he was roped in by the Washington State University on a fellowship to teach Sufi singing. It was a post held by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan that was given to Hans after a unanimous decision in favour of him. So are you filling the gap left by the great singer? Hans is down to earth. 8220;No, there will always be only one Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, nobody can replace him.8221;

Clad in his black jeans, matching T-shirt, an off-white coat, wearing beaded necklace and similar bracelets, with curly hair all gelled, Hans came to the city last Sunday. And spared a few moments with the Newsline before his concert. He does not have anything great to say about the present crop of pop singers, 8220;You have to compromise a lot for making yourself popular and some of them want it really fast. But for me stability is the backbone and I don8217;t want to run along the fast track.8221; The lefty said, as he signed a few autographs, 8220;I am not one to churn out albums. Any other person would have taken a peela ghrara8217; or a neela gharara8217; after the success of Lal Gharara8217;. Let Jhanjar8217; sink in into people and I will work on a new album.8221; You need not expect a payal8217; after a Jhanjar8217;.

Sunshine Man
No one expected the world premiere8217; of Dominique Lapierre8217;s A Thousand Suns to be an evening of revelations, but it turned out to be one. We heard former prime minister I. K. Gujral announcing that the inspirational Frenchman was his favourite author. Gujral, you must have noticed, is the current favourite of authors wanting to get their books released, the last being Romesh Bhandari, who takes a break from politics in Goa. Lapierre, for his part, let everyone know that the famous bus trip to Lahore wasn8217;t the first. Some 25 years ago, he had brought in 150 booksellers, publishers and journalists on a bus from Pakistan through the Wagah border.

And thus began Lapierre8217;s dramatic account of his life and times, as he took his audience on a journey down memory lane, recalling his encounters while researching for Freedom At Midnight and City Of Joy, especially his meetings with Lord Mountbatten and Mother Teresa. Strangely enough, he did not talk much about A Thousand Suns, his latest, except a theatrical rendering of how he came by the title of the book in the course of a monsoon spent in the South, where discovered the proverb: 8220;There are a thousand suns beyond the clouds.8221; Sounding quite like a Shakespearean actor with a French accent, Lapierre claimed he realised in a moment that this would be the name of his next book.

Gujral ended the evening being so impressed with the writer8217;s commitment to charity that he invited Lapierre to join him in giving out the Full Circle Inner Flame awards. Much to Lapierre8217;s surprise, the last name to be called out was his own he had been given the lifetime achievement award. A nice way to say thank you to the irrepressible Indophile.

With love, for the Taj
They went to Agra with love and the money collected from the children of the city but had the Agraites floored and a bit ashamed; for they went to deposit the money with the Archaeological Survey of India with a plea to utilise it for the upkeep of Taj. The group, under the banner Save The Taj Campaign, consists of first generation Chandigarhians who strongly feel that the country has no regard for its monuments. So, led by Suparna, a lecturer in History at the GCG, Sector 42, they gathered at schools, collected Re one per student, staged a play highlighting the deterioration of the Taj Mahal and organised rallies. 8220;One is overwhelmed in the vicinity of the monument by that immortal love. How can one neglect the architecture wonder that the Taj is?8221; they ask.

And on 25 of last month, Suparna along with her volunteers, Dilpreet, Tanmeet and Nimrita, all BA sophomores at her college, gave the draft to D V Sharma, the ASI superintendent at Taj. And the journalists there told them, 8220;It is a slap on our face that outsiders are doing something for the Taj.8221; That is what the bunch intends to give the Indians through their campaign. Dilpreet is one for privatisation of management at Taj for she was appalled to discover that out of the Rs 105 collected, only Rs 5 went into Taj maintenance. And the girls, who had earlier visited the monument with parents instructing them not to touch and spoil the marble, were shocked to see the utter callousness of visitors. 8220;The foreigners watched the Taj in awe but our people were eating, throwing, writing and doing their vulgar display of heroism all over the place.8221; Suparna is clear: 8220;We will organise awareness programmes and we are not going to rest till the time there is furore in the country over the plight of Taj.8221;

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Sourish Bhattacharyya with Sonia Trikha, Kanika Gahlaut and Anupreeta Das and Rathi A Menon